Welcome to Temptation

  “I don’t see any dangers.” Frank stood up to go. “And I have to leave. I’m late.”

  “Sit down,” Stephen said. “Some of us think of other things besides acting.” He sent a dismissive glance at Phin. “Or playing pool.”

  “Yeah, like painting the water tower twice to double your profit,” Frank said.

  “There is that,” Hildy said.

  “Could you forget that so we can speak to the issues?” Stephen said.

  “I think that making double your profit at the expense of the taxpayers is an issue,” Frank said.

  “Oh, for heaven’s sake, I’ll give you the damn paint!” Stephen said, and Phin said, “Thank you, Stephen, we accept. Now if there’s nothing else—”

  “This movie.” Stephen put his hands on the table. “Clea made that one movie, remember? We don’t want that kind of movie made here.”

  “Always Tomorrow.” Virginia nodded. “But I really think the nudity in that was for artistic purposes, and it wasn’t very much. And she died in the end so she was punished.”

  Phin spared a brief thought as to what it must like to be married to Virginia if she thought nudity was punishable by death, but then Stephen caught his attention again.

  “No, not Always Tomorrow,” Stephen was saying, and Frank said, “Oh,” and sat down again.

  Virginia looked mystified; Rachel looked intrigued; Liz and Hildy looked at the ceiling; and Phin remembered Coming Clean, a plotless, straight-to-video movie set in a car wash that Clea undoubtedly did not have on her résumé since she’d been billed as “Candy Suds.” He didn’t know how Stephen had gotten hold of it; Phin had only seen it because Ed had it in his extensive pornography collection.

  “Stephen, I doubt she’s shooting porn here,” Phin said, and Rachel said, “Clea Whipple made a dirty movie? Fabulous.”

  Stephen nodded. “There. See? That’s what I’m talking about. Family values. We let Clea make this kind of movie here, and our children will think it’s all right because we approved of it. And those women with the camera looked loose.”

  Excellent, Phin thought. At last, some good news.

  His mother shot him a sharp look.

  “We should have a policy on this,” Stephen went on. “We won’t give a filming permit to anyone unless they sign a no-nudity clause.”

  “How many movies do you think Temptation is going to get?” Phin said, but Frank said, “Hey, it could happen. Although, with a no-nudity clause—” He shook his head. “That’s too strict, Stephen. We don’t want to stifle the film industry here.”

  Stephen zeroed in on Phin. “Responsible leadership demands responsible legislation. It’s our civic duty—”

  The problem, Phin thought—not for the first time, as Stephen ranted on— wasn’t that Stephen was a fathead and Virginia was a gossip, it was that Stephen was a driven fathead with a large conservative following, and Virginia talked to everybody. Phin could hear her now: “Well, of course Phin’s a lovely boy, but he was actually for pornography, can you imagine?” Yeah, that would get out the votes in November.

  On the other hand, there were some things that Phin was willing to fight for. “I’m against censorship, Stephen,” he said, interrupting the older man in mid-tirade. “It comes with owning a bookstore. No banned books.”

  “How about a pornography clause?” Virginia said. “That’s not nudity, and it’s not censorship because pornography is bad. We have to protect our children.” She gave Rachel her usual obsessively loving smile, including Phin in it, too, as her future son-in-law. Such a nice couple, her smile said. What lovely grandchildren they’ll give me. And they’ll live right next door.

  Phin’s answering smile said, Not a chance in hell, while Rachel gazed at Justice and Mercy, pretending she’d never heard of pornography or sex, or Phin, for that matter.

  Phin said, “And how would we define ‘pornography’?”

  “Everybody knows pornography when they see it,” Stephen said.

  “There’s some difference of opinion on that,” Phin said. “I don’t think we should make law on ‘Everybody knows.’ ”

  “Stephen may be right,” Liz said, and Phin thought, Oh, hell, Mom, shut up. “We have an obligation to the citizens of Temptation.” She cast a calculating look at the four citizens in the audience, undoubtedly sizing up the situation in terms of getting her son reelected in November. “We could pass a no-pornography ordinance, and stipulate that ‘pornography’ is to be defined by the council.”

  “I think that’s unconstitutional,” Phin said. “You can’t make a law that gets defined later. People have to know what they’re breaking.”

  “It’s not a law,” Stephen said. “It’s an ordinance. I move that Temptation adopt an anti-pornography ordinance.”

  “No,” Phin said. “I’m not going to have you going through the bookstore and throwing out Lady Chatterley.”

  “I move that Temptation adopt an anti-pornographic movie ordinance,” Virginia said, and Stephen said, “I second it.”

  Phin looked at his council and thought, Why do I put up with this? It was a stupid ordinance, and probably unconstitutional, and definitely a waste of time. On the other hand, talking the council out of it would take another hour which would cut into the semi regular late-afternoon pool game he played with Temptation’s police chief. And, since it was highly unlikely that anybody but Clea Whipple would ever want to make a movie in Temptation, and, in fact, highly unlikely that Clea Whipple did want to make a movie in Temptation, he’d be fighting for a principle that was never going to be tested. “Call the roll, Rachel.”

  The vote went four in favor of establishing the ordinance, to two against, with Frank voting no to defend the infant Temptation film industry and Ed dissenting without comment. Hildy should have voted against it as an anticensorship English teacher, but the look she shot Phin as she voted made it clear that this was payback time.

  Stephen said, “I’ll draft the ordinance tonight and we’ll call a special meeting to pass it.”

  “No, we won’t,” Phin said. “We’ll vote on it next Wednesday, same time, same place. And now, if there are no objections, I move we close this meeting.”

  “Second.” Frank stood up to go. “And by the way, Stephen, we voted to buy the fancy streetlights while you were gone.”

  “You what?” Stephen’s roar was outraged.

  “You’re late for your appointment, Frank.” Phin stood up. “This meeting is dismissed.” When Stephen drew breath to protest, he added, “Everybody leave.”

  Rachel snickered and closed her notebook.

  “We shouldn’t wait on the ordinance,” Stephen said, as the others left, and Phin said, “Sure we should. Legislate in haste, repent at leisure. Next week is fine.”

  “Well, then, we’re going to reconsider those streetlights next week, too.” Stephen shook his head, clearly disgusted with the state of politics in Temptation.

  Phin smiled at Rachel as he headed for the door. “Thank you, Rachel, for taking the blame for the paint. That was very noble.”

  Rachel grinned at him, and Phin saw his mother waiting for him by the door, relaxing into a half-smile as she watched the future daughter-in-law of her choice. Fat chance, he wanted to tell her, but that was another argument he didn’t want to have. He’d already told his mother that it was out of the question —Rachel said “like” a lot, she didn’t read, and she played lousy pool— but Liz Tucker hadn’t gotten to be First Lady of Temptation by taking “no” for an answer.

  “Wait a moment,” she said to her son now as he went past her, and he shook his head.

  “Can’t stay. I’ll talk to you at dinner.” He escaped into the marble hall only to find himself waylaid by Ed Yarnell, who looked at him with naked contempt.

  “Interesting council meeting you missed just now, Phineas,” Ed said. “You just sit there staring into space with your thumb up your butt while Stephen rams through a censorship law.”

  “Thanks, Ed,” Phin
said, trying to move away. “Can’t stay—”

  “You’re getting to be too much like your old man, rolling over for Stephen.”

  Phin felt his temper rise and repressed it from long practice. “Dad never rolled over, he was just careful. This is politics, Ed.”

  “This is crap,” Ed said. “I thought it was a good thing you’d cooled your jets some over the years, considering what a reckless dumbass you used to be, but now I don’t know. It’s been a good long time since I’ve seen you break a sweat over anything.”

  Phin clapped him on the shoulder. “Well, thanks for the advice, Ed. Have a nice evening.”

  Ed shook his head as Phin escaped again, this time through the wide-arched door of the little courthouse. An architectural gem, a tourist had once told him. “Well, we like it,” Phin had said, but it was hard to be impartial since he’d grown up in the place. Generations of Tucker mayors had run the courthouse and Temptation, except for those two dark Garvey years when Stephen’s father had wrested the office from Phin’s father over the New Bridge controversy.

  That was what Stephen was looking for now, Phin knew as he went down the marble steps to the old-fashioned storefronts of Temptation’s Main Street

  . Some controversy that he could exploit the same way his father had exploited the New Bridge. The water tower had been small potatoes, and Stephen wasn’t getting anywhere on his anti-new streetlight campaign, but the way he’d jumped on the porn thing, he might be thinking that was his ticket. Which only went to show how desperate Stephen was.

  Of course, having your Cadillac hit by loose, low-class women could rattle a man.

  Phin reached the pale green Victorian that housed Tucker Books, climbed the wide wooden steps to the porch, and flipped over the sign that said Back at 4:30 in childishly skewed, crayoned printing. Then he sat down in one of the cushioned porch chairs and thought of the upcoming election with fatalistic distaste. He didn’t care if he won; it was losing that would make him crazy. Tuckers didn’t lose. Especially since losing would carry with it the extra burden of watching Stephen Garvey run Temptation into the ground with his nutso family values. God forbid there should be another Garvey Reign of Error. Phin was still sitting there half an hour later, lost in thoughts of streetlights, water towers, and porn permits, when Temptation’s police chief pulled up in front.

  “Stephen stopped by the station,” Wes Mazur said as he got out of the patrol car.

  “Don’t tell me, let me guess,” Phin said. “He wants me arrested for un-mayorlike conduct. Dereliction of civic duty.”

  “Close.” Wes came up the steps looking as unconcerned as ever behind his heavy black glasses. “He wants me to go out to the Whipple farm and investigate some women that ran into him.”

  Phin nodded. “He mentioned them. They’re loose women. And possible pornographers.”

  “Really?” Wes looked encouraged as he sat down. “And we know this how? No, wait, I’ve got it. The Whipple farm. Clea Whipple. Coming Clean.”

  “There you go.” Phin put his feet on the porch rail and leaned back in his chair. “The keen mind of the law at work.”

  “So Clea’s coming here to make a movie.” Wes looked almost enthusiastic. Then reality set in. “Why?”

  “Excellent question. If only Stephen would ask it occasionally.”

  “He can’t. It would slow down the leaps he makes to get to his conclusions.” Wes frowned out at the street. “You know, I was considering just letting the insurance agents handle the accident, but now I think I better go out there, make sure everything’s okay.”

  “Check out Clea in the flesh.”

  “My civic duty.”

  “Not to mention the loose women.”

  “That, too.” Wes stood up, checking his watch. “It’s five. You want to close up and come with me?”

  “Oh, yeah,” Phin said. “My civic duty, too. We can play pool later.”

  “We live to serve,” Wes said.

  “I just want another look at Clea,” Phin said.

  Sophie unpacked their supplies and organized the dingy kitchen while ignoring the truly ugly cherry wallpaper on one wall, and Clea talked to her the entire time, not helping at all. “Frank’s going to be here any minute,” she kept saying, sounding almost excited, which was unlike her; she’d been beautifully bored for the five years Sophie had known her.

  After half an hour, Sophie had heard enough about Frank the football star; Frank the high-school-theater leading man; Frank the wealthy developer; Frank, the generally magnificent. “Interesting wallpaper,” she said, trying to change the conversation.

  Clea looked at the wall and shrugged. “My mom put it up. She got that one wall done and my father saw it and made her take the rest of the wallpaper back. He was a tight old bastard.”

  Sophie looked at the huge ugly bluish cherries. “Maybe he just had good taste.”

  “No.” Clea turned her back on the cherries. “He was just a bastard. He was lousy at taking care of us, but he was a real pro at saying no.” She seemed bored by the change of subject and drifted out the door, leaving Sophie to scrub the sink.

  When Sophie finished the kitchen, she put her suitcase in a sweltering bedroom that included a hideous blue china dolphin lamp, and then she cleaned the bathroom, although she couldn’t manage to unclog the showerhead or find a replacement for the pink-and-blue-fish-covered, mildew-encrusted shower curtain. Finally she went back to the kitchen, put Dusty in Memphis on their CD player, and made ham-and-cheese sandwiches to “Just a Little Lovin‘.”

  “The plumbing works, sort of,” Sophie told Amy when she came in. She rinsed out a glass in the kitchen sink and then watched the water seep down the drain. “Although showers will be a problem. I haven’t checked the electricity—the basement looks like the pit of hell— but the refrigerator is on again and we’re leaving Sunday. We can stand anything for five days.”

  “You haven’t met our leading man.” Amy picked up a ham sandwich and bit into it. “A charter member in Buttheads Anonymous.”

  “This would be Frank?”

  “This would be Frank. He got here half an hour ago, and already I want him dead.” Amy dropped into one of the dingy white wooden kitchen chairs in front of the mutant-berry wallpaper. “He looks like Kurt Russell did in Used Cars, I mean, he’s wearing a green suit, for heaven’s sake, and he’s drooling into Clea’s cleavage.”

  “The police and the mayor are here,” Clea said from the archway, making Amy choke on her sandwich. “Frank says he’ll handle it.”

  “Oh, no he won’t,” Sophie said.

  When she went out on the porch, tensed for battle, a guy in a green suit was talking with a cop in uniform, but they looked manageable. It was the third man, leaning bored against the passenger side of the squad car, who sent every instinct she had into overdrive.

  He had broad shoulders, mirrored sunglasses, and no smile, and Sophie could hear ominous music on the soundtrack in her head as her heart started to pound. His fair hair shone in the late-afternoon sun, his profile was classic and beautiful, the sleeves of his tailored white shirt were rolled precisely to his elbows, and his khaki slacks were immaculate and pressed. He looked like every glossy frat boy in every nerd movie ever made, like every popular town boy who’d ever looked right through her in high school, like every rotten rich kid who’d ever belonged where she hadn’t.

  My mama warned me about guys like you.

  He turned to her as if he’d heard her and took off his sunglasses, and she went down the steps to meet him, wiping her sweaty palms on her dust-smeared khaki shorts. “Hi, I’m Sophie Dempsey,” she said, flashing the Dempsey gotta-love-me grin as she held out her hot, grimy hand, and after a moment he took it.

  His hand was clean and cool and dry, and her heart pounded harder as she looked into his remote, gray eyes.

  “Hello, Sophie Dempsey,” her worst nightmare said. “Welcome to Temptation.”

  Chapter Two

  Sophie’s nightmare
had a good six inches on her, and it was hard to smile looking that far up into cool eyes while her heart tried to pound its way out of her rib cage. “Oh. Thank you.”

  He nodded down at her, his eyes never leaving her face as he favored her with a politician’s practiced smile. “I’m Phin Tucker, the mayor, and this is Wes Mazur, our police chief.”

  The cop had come to stand next to them, shorter than the mayor and pale in his white shirt and black pants. Under his brown crewcut, he peered out of serious, heavy black-rimmed glasses.

  “We came about the accident....” the cop began, and then his voice trailed off and Sophie turned to see Clea floating down the steps, looking as blonde and lush as ever.